coinspeaker.com
Revolut, a British financial technology company that offers banking services, has signed a new deal with payments giant Visa. As a result, Revolut will expand its services to 24 new markets, or a total of 56 around the world, and hire 3500 employees.
Under the terms of the agreement, Revolut will primarily issue Visa-branded cards in the global expansion. As Reuters reports, Visa will initially enable Revolut to launch in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and the United States, followed by Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine and Vietnam.
Nikolay Storonsky, Revolut founder and chief executive officer, commented:
“We are excited to build upon our existing collaboration with Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, which will bring to life our shared vision for seamless, innovative payment experiences. The new global agreement with Visa is timely for Revolut as we move into a number of new markets to offer even more consumers the control, flexibility and innovative features that our European customers have been benefiting from for years.”
He added:
“We are around 1500 people now and by summer next year we plan to be around 5000.”
Jack Forestell, chief product officer at Visa, said:
“Revolut has made great strides in delivering innovative and unique experiences to consumers in Europe. We are thrilled to extend our relationship as Revolut looks to achieve their global growth ambitions and collectively drive increased volume on the Visa network. With Visa being accepted at nearly 54 million merchant locations across more than 200 countries, we have the scale, experience and expertise to help fintechs like Revolut go global.”
Revolut will also continue working with Mastercard in Europe, but no so closely. 75% of all Revolut cards carry Visa branding.
Visa and Revolut have been partners for over four years. The digital banking alternative first began issuing Visa cards to its customers across Europe in July 2017. Since then, Revolut has been able to leverage Visa’s global network and capabilities to help drive its rapid global expansion, including issuing Visa-branded cards in every major European market today.
For Visa, the new deal is a good chance to increase its transaction volume as well as help fin-tech companies enhance their network. Jack Forestell said:
“As Revolut and other FinTechs emerge and expand scale, Visa works with them to further enhance their network at scale and with speed.”
He added:
“Not only will consumers benefit from the trust, security and globality of the Visa brand and technology, Revolut has folded additional Visa capabilities onto its platform including Visa Token Service.”
For Revolut, which has attracted over 7 million customers in Europe since its launch in July 2015, the deal can lead to doubling or even tripling its customers next year.